Twenty One
by ladyoftheknightley
Summary: It's Lily's birthday. James's out on a mission. Times are hard. [Warning for (canon) character death]


_It's not mine. I wanted to write something for Lily's birthday, which is today. Sorry it's so depressing. I'll give you birthday cake if you review :)_

The night of 29th January 1981, it rains and rains. Lily's kept awake by the baby's grouching and the noise of the wind, rattling the very windows in their panes—not that she'd sleep even if she cast a silencing charm because James is _still_ gone. On Sunday, Dumbledore had sent him off on some Godforsaken mission or another, told him and the others to pack for several days, and that was that. She isn't expecting him back until at least the middle of next week, based on some rumours Alice Longbottom had heard and passed on to her. She's almost out of her mind with worry (it _never_ gets easier) and so, whilst no news was still good news, she can't help wishing and wishing and wishing he was home. Tonight more than ever, she wishes he was here, with her, because tomorrow—which is only twenty-five minutes away—is her birthday.

Her _twenty first_ birthday.

She remembers, shortly before she first found out about magic, attending Petula Hemmington's twenty-first birthday briefly. Petula had lived three doors down from the Evanses, and was training to be a hairdresser. She always wore baby pink lipstick and slightly unfashionable floral print dresses and there had been cheese sandwiches and Babycham in the proper glasses and a cake Mrs Hemmington had iced herself. Lily had been bored out of her mind, but Petunia had liked it. Suburban normality had always been her thing.

She snorts at the memory, imagining bringing the Order round to their hideout for cheese sandwiches and Babycham and trying to keep Harry calm throughout it. Petula hadn't had a baby at _her_ twenty-first birthday party.

But she'd had her parent there.

Lily blinks. It's nearly ten years since she lost her father—a freak accident in the mine he'd worked in, shortly after Christmas of her second year—and now her mother's gone, too—cancer, last October. Evanses aren't a long-lived bunch, she thinks. Potters are, though, so there's hope for Harry.

Maybe. If Voldemort doesn't kill him first.

As though he's heard her thought, Harry's grouching turns into full blown wailing and she fetches him from the nursery, taking him back to her bed and rocking him gently in her arms. His crying stops, but he doesn't sleep, watching her instead with those big green eyes. She'd never understood how James had fallen in love with her eyes until she saw them on Harry. Then she did.

"Hey, Harry," she says after a little while, having glanced up and noticed the clock's ticked over to midnight. "It's Mummy's birthday."

"Buh-buh-buh," Harry burbles, in his baby way.

"Are you wishing me a happy birthday?" she smiles. "You are! You're a clever boy." She sighs. "It's not going to be much of a birthday party later, I'm afraid. No party. No presents. No Daddy. I haven't even made a cake yet... Petula Hemmington would not be impressed, would she?" She continues on until Harry falls asleep. She knows that she, too, should sleep—for four nights, she barely has and she's almost hallucinating with exhaustion—but in her dreams, she's forced to watch James die over and over and over again, always powerless to stop it. And so she keeps herself awake, reciting silly stories and memories (like Petula Hemmington's birthday party) kind of to Harry, but mostly to herself.

She feels like she has to remind herself that she once had a normal life, before the Order and the war and the hiding out. (Sometimes, and very secretly, she kind of wants Petunia's life. Petunia's husband isn't going to get killed in a stupid war. Petunia lives in a house she chose herself, not some cottage she was forced into to live under an enchantment of secrecy because some lunatic wants to kill her. Petunia makes her own choices. Sometimes, she thinks that if Voldemort does kill her, she wants to bleed her dirty blood all over him, so he can see it's the same colour as anyone else's and that this whole war is pointless.)

Anger and resentment and exhaustion send her into a fitful half-sleep; she's woken from her drowsing by noises downstairs at 3:01 according to the clock on the wall. Despite everything, she's instantly on red alert, standing wand in hand in the doorway, Harry still sleeping peacefully on the bed. "Who's there?" she asks.

"It's me, James," a familiar voice comes from downstairs. She moves to the top of the stairs; he and Sirius are stood at the bottom, but she doesn't lower her wand as she asks them to prove it. It's standard procedure—they can't be too careful these days—and usually when one of them asks, the other will say something funny to try to lighten the mood: _you had red knickers on when I left_ or _you only married me because the other choice was the giant squid_ or _I once ate a cake you'd accidentally baked with salt instead of sugar because I love you so much_. But tonight, all James says is "It's your birthday today. And in six months and one day, it'll be our son's."

Still slightly suspicious, she flicks her wand at the lights on the walls, then gasps when she sees James and Sirius.

"It's not ours," the latter says immediately, as she runs to them, taking in their blood-stained clothes and bodies.

"We're okay," James adds, somewhat mechanically.

"What happened?" she asks, looking between them.

"Benjy Fenwick copped it," Sirius says, his voice hard. "My dear, _dear_ cousin blew him up. That's where all the blood came from."

"_Jesus_," says Lily. She thinks she might be sick; the smell coming from the two of them gets even stronger.

"Marlene's gone to inform Dumbledore we had to abort the mission, and I'm off to inform Frank and Podmore that we have to go and see what, if anything, of his body we can recover from the site," Sirius continues, his voice still hard as ice. "I thought I'd shower first, if that's okay?"

"Of course," says Lily mimicking James's robotic tone, as though the boys often come round to use her bathroom to wash a friend's blood off their bodies. "I'll sort you out some clean clothes." Sirius nods once, then heads upstairs. "James?" she says quietly, as the sound of running water starts up.

"I have to go and tell Laura," he says. "That's what we drew lots for. Marlene got finding Dumbledore; Sirius got finding the bits of blown up body, and I got telling his wife." His voice shakes.

"You can go in the morning," Lily says. "Let her have this one last night of peace, and—look at you. You're in no state to be going anywhere right now. Come on now." She takes his hand and leads him into the kitchen, feeling guiltier and guiltier with every step. If something had happened to James, she would want to know _now_, not the next day. But she cannot let him out of her sight again tonight, even if it is to tell someone that their husband is never coming back again. A tiny, selfish voice tells her she shouldn't have to justify keeping James with her tonight: it's her _birthday_!

She chokes back a sob.

James sits down in a kitchen chair, and she surreptitiously _Scourgify's_ his robes. Then she runs warm water into a basin, picks up a cloth and starts sponging the muck—she doesn't even want to think what it might be—off his face. "What happened?" she asks.

"Dumbledore came four days ago, with a mission for us," James says. "He'd heard the Death Eaters were trying to recruit a bunch of people in Upper Flagley, in Yorkshire. He wanted Benjy and Marlene to disguise themselves as a couple interested in joining, and Sirius and I to use the cloak and be invisible to see what we could overhear in the meeting. We spent a couple of days doing basic infiltration, and then tonight was supposed to be the main meeting. But they must've known something was up, because we were ambushed when we got there. Voldemort wasn't there but...pretty much everyone else we know of was. We—we were going to retreat."

His voice cracks, and Lily strokes his hair. She wants to stuff her fingers in her ears and refuse to listen to his stories of being so near to death but she owes it to Benjy and Laura, and James himself to hear him out.

"We...we started to. We were almost out when I saw Bellatrix Lestrange point her wand at me and Benjy," James pauses again, and Lily grips the cloth she's using to wipe his forehead like it's a lifeline—his lifeline. "I yelled to duck, there was no time for a Shield Charm. And I ducked. But Benjy...didn't. And she blasted him into pieces..."

"It's not your fault," Lily says automatically, massaging his shoulders. "Benjy knew what he was getting into, Lestrange was the one who cast the spell. It's not your fault."

"I know," James says. But he'd said the same things to her after she'd watched Voldemort kill Dorcas Meadowes and she'd believed him then as much as he believes her now.

Not at all.

She tries to find something to say, but they're interrupted by Sirius, hair still wet, coming back downstairs. "I'm off," he says shortly.

"Are you sure you don't want to say?" Lily asks. Sirius scares her a bit when he has that maniacal anger in his eyes like he does now. He's likely to do something—

"Don't do anything foolish, mate," James says from behind her, and she jumps. The boys' appearances have made her a bundle of nerves.

"I won't," Sirius says. She and James must both be wearing identical expressions of disbelief because he gives the ghost of a smile and adds, "Marauder's honour."

"Go to Moony's, if you won't stay," James says. "Get a few hours kip before you and Frank and Podmore go off. It'll be safer in the daylight."

"Will do," Sirius says. "Catch you guys later." Lily walks him to the door and lets him out into the wild night. "Happy birthday," he blurts out, just before apparating away. "Sorry. I forgot until now..."

"Understandable," Lily says. "Come round tomorrow. I mean, later today. We'll have cake."

"Cake," Sirius says, like it's ridiculous to think that cake and birthdays should exist in this world of terror and war and death. It _is_ ridiculous. "Don't let James bake it."

"Never fear," Lily grins, and Sirius apparates away. Lily puts the wards back on the door, and by the time she's done that, James is creeping upstairs.

"I'm going to shower, too," he says. Although he looks clean of all the blood now, she doesn't blame him, nor does she resent the long time he spends in the shower. She knows herself how hard it is to scrape that feeling of death off your body. She sits with Harry in their bed again—miraculously, he slept through all the disturbance. Maybe, Lily thinks, he sensed James's presence somehow and felt soothed by it. She doesn't blame him—she feels slightly better too, now that he's home again, despite everything.

Eventually, he comes back in the room, wearing a fresh pair of pyjamas and smelling of soap and _James_. "Can I put him to bed?" he whispers, nodding towards Harry, who she's cradling.

"Of course," she murmurs. She hands their son over, and listens to the sounds of James padding into the nursery, and putting him into his cot. Even Harry's slight grizzle when he's placed in the cool cot sounds somehow more peaceful now James is back.

When he comes back, he's babyless but clutching something else instead—an awkwardly wrapped square box. She can't help her smile as he passes it to her. He never did get the hang of wrapping...

"Happy birthday," he says, sliding into bed next to her. "I mean, it isn't. But have a present anyway."

She kisses him on the cheek. "I'm happy you're here," she says. "It could be worse." She knows he's thinking of Benjy—imagining vividly what that _worse_ is—and makes a big show of laughing at his feeble attempt at wrapping, and tearing off the paper. She'd already guessed that the box contained jewellery, but she actually gasps aloud at how beautiful the earrings she uncovers are.

"Potter family heirloom," James explains, as the diamonds sparkle in his wandlight. "Given to wives on the birth of their first child. Congratulations again, Mrs P." Lily just stares in wonder at the beautiful stones.

"Thank you," she whispers. "For...for giving them to me."

"You're my wife," James shrugs. "And the mother of my first child. And it's not like I've had much opportunity to go out and go shopping for chocolates or lingerie or whatever..." She giggles. "There is one more thing," James adds, tapping the box with his wand. It expands to the size of a large hardback book, though the earrings remain as they are. Carved into the sides are initials and dates. "Babies' births," James explains. "Look."

On the left had side, in James's messy writing: _HJP – 31/7/1981_

"I will keep them," Lily says at once, "but not forever. When Harry..."

"_When_ Harry gets married and has a kid," James says insistently, because neither of them can believe otherwise tonight of all nights, "we will give them to him to give to his wife."

"We will," Lily says, and James helps her pin the earrings in. She feels a bit ridiculous wearing thousands of Galleons of jewellery and a Marks and Spencer nightie to bed, but she's _twenty one_. That's an age to be ridiculous, she thinks.

"How do I look?" she asks, posing outrageously. James gives his first real smile since arriving home.

"Beautiful," he says, kissing her. "Many happy returns, Mrs P."

"Thank you," she says, smiling up at him.

"And don't worry," he adds, as they snuggle down under the covers together. "I'm sure your twenty second birthday will be much, much better than this one."

"This one was perfect the moment you turned up, never mind anything else," Lily says.

"I love you," he replies.

"I love you, too," she says, and, despite everything, she falls into her first peaceful, dreamless sleep for days.


End file.
